Visualizing Interactive Art Direction

Topic: Art Direction and Interactive

Date: December 3, 2009
Run by: Tim May
Notes by: Tim May
Attendees: Marvin Gaviola, Tim May, Matt Adams, Teija Springman, Matt Morasky, George Champlian, Michael Pearo, Mike Beauliau, Damian Fracaviglia, Carol Mellor, Tim Pfiffner, Jae Jung, Brooke Huston,

Libations: Coke Zero, Coke Classic, Drop Top Amber, Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Ingredients: Notecards, pens, whiteboards, big white paper

Agenda:

4:00-4:15 - What's your favorite website and why

The evening began with everyone taking a note card and writing their name and favorite website on the front of the card. The back was reserved for describing why it was their favorite website.

4:15-4:25 - Interactive Art Direction

I then went into a brief presentation/discussion on art direction and how it relates to the web. Some of the content here was based on this article by Stephen Hay. The primary driver behind the discussion was the importance of concept in art direction - and the importance of tying the concept to the goals of the entity being represented online.

4:25-5:10 - Nailing Your Concept

I then divided the group into 4 groups of three and handed out sheets of paper with the following descriptions:

1. Your viewership is millions of national and international viewers who will come to your site for news - of all kinds. You represent news from your country but you cover world events. Many come to your site for breaking news, sports analysis and updates, entertainment & arts, weather, culture, opinion and technology.

2. Your viewership consists people interested in biomimicry in nature and your site is a portal with the goal of demonstrating successful implementations of biomimicry in nature, collecting submissions for ideas, and most importantly, showing interested parties how to donate to your foundation.

3. You are a yogurt company with the goal of raising awareness about the benefits of natural, organic yogurt and the advantages of not using High Fructose Corn Syrup and other artificial sweeteners.

4. You are a mint company with a loyal following - your goal is creating a place for your customers to play, participate and engage in your brand.

5:10-5:25 - Concept Presentation

Teams then presented the concepts that they would base their design and direction upon.

5:25-5:50 - Building & Presenting the Home Page

The Teams then started working on building out the home page and sketching some of the basic interaction that would occur. This resulted in some fantastic concepts that were enthusiastically shared with the group.

5:50-6:05 - Keeping Score

I then showed four real world applications of the criteria that were laid-down in the beginning to compare our ideas with some award-winning websites that had been built that I thought demonstrated strong art direction.

Those websites were:

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/

2. http://www.asknature.org/

3. http://www.hellosoursally.com/

4. http://www.altoids.com/

Great feedback was given for the plus/delta.